Saturday, February 21, 2015

This article leads with the idea that Stutzman could lose her home and life savings. It doesn't mention that the Washington AG made a quite reasonable settlement offer. Stutzman is risking all that loss because she refuses to acknowledge that she broke the law. It's all your fault that I'm hitting myself in the head with this hammer and I'll keep doing it until you let me do what I want. These people are the saddest examples of Christianity on the planet. They can't see that the law isn't anti-Christian, it's anti-discrimination. Their problem is they interpret their faith in such a way that not only is discrimination allowed but actually commanded.

They have finally built an engine that uses lasers as the ignition source. They are not only more precise but it is possible to have multiple ones per cylinder such that fuel is exploded more completely with each stroke.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

A genuine free market depends on the consumer having the choice to buy or not to buy should the price be unaffordable. This isn't true with health care. But the libertarian, free-market purist can't see thate. “People could die and that’s OK”, is how they look at it.

I've often referred to nuclear power as a renewable. Here's why. You can recycle 80% of the uranium in spent fuel, much less mining is needed. Furthermore, a breeder program can produce more fuel than it consumes. With appropriate safeguards and new reactor designs it is possible to fuel a plant once and have it operate for the rest of its lifetime with no additional refueling.

Terrapower is collaborating Areva in Richland to test fuel designs for its new type of reactor. Other SMR outfits have also been in contact with the company. Eastern Washington may be getting into the SMR game with or without the encouragement of our state government.

Don't let the "job-creators" get away with it. This analysis explains that there are many components to product costs and often labor isn't the major one. Everyone understands when costs go up for such things as transportation and high rent and we adapt to that. The small bump caused by a minimum wage increase can easily be accepted when we consider the benefit it gives to a great many hard-working people. Furthermore, more money to the less-affluent class generates an instant economic boost because that money goes back into the economy immediately.

Washington’s score of -12.6% was the worst in the nation. The poorest 20% of families paid nearly 17% of their income in state and local taxes, the highest such rate nationwide. With the wealthiest 1% of state households paying just 2.4% — nearly the lowest such rate — Washington’s tax system helped widen the income gap more than any other state. Washington’s poorest residents paid nearly seven times what the wealthiest 1% paid as a share of income, one of the highest such ratios nationwide. While Washington’s tax code is considered by many to be among the nation’s most unfair, residents are better-off financially than in many other states. A typical household earned $58,405 in 2013, one of the higher household median incomes. And while 15.8% of Americans lived in poverty that year, 14.1% did in Washington.

Perhaps our legislature should do something about this. An income tax to replace sales tax perhaps?

In cosmological terms, the scientists explain that the quantum corrections can be thought of as a cosmological constant term (without the need for dark energy) and a radiation term. These terms keep the universe at a finite size, and therefore give it an infinite age. The terms also make predictions that agree closely with current observations of the cosmological constant and density of the universe.

"When compared objectively with renewables, nuclear power performs as well or better in terms of safety, cost, scaleability, land transformation and emissions," says Professor Barry Brook, Chair of Climate Change at the Environment Institute for this study, and now Professor of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Tasmania

Search This Blog

QOTD

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.--Oscar Wilde

In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. --Iroquois Confederacy Maxim

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. --Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. --Barack Obama

Countless lives were saved when I decided not to become a nurse. --Mildred Walton

The secret to a long marriage is to take care of your health.--Mildred Walton